Finding friends

Posted on Tue Nov 30th, 2021 @ 5:37am by

2,352 words; about a 12 minute read

I was crouched in the bushes just off the path. My roomie, friend and main academic rival T’ral was walking down the path along with a first year student she was tutoring. I briefly thought about pouncing at them just to see the young human’s reaction but I was hungry and that bird… it taunted me.

I was trying to lay off on squirrel hunting. No real challenge and the grounds keeper was getting really annoyed at me over my thinning of the local population. That had been a fun conversation with him and the Dean. Sure… I could eat replicated “fresh meat” but my people are hunters and a fresh kill was always preferable and in the name of good relations with my people I was allowed some limited amount of hunting and I was truly looking to add a few feathers to my trophy collection.

The bird took off and YES! It flew just in the right spot I pounced and felt the birds neck and back crack under my teeth as my claws found their mark in the birds flesh. I landed perfectly in the bushes on the other side of the pathway.

“Impressive technique. A clean kill it would seem.” I heard T’ral say in that same near infuriating placid voice that Vulcans tended to keep to.

“Wait… was that a cat in a cadet uniform that nearly hit my head mid leap?” the young human said with some confusion.

I trotted out of the bushes onto the path, savoring the flavor of my prey in my mouth as I looked up at the two individuals. I dropped the bird and politely offered to share my kill with my temporary pride mate, and the human she was walking with. It wouldn’t do to be rude after all.

“Either of you two want a bit? I could spare one or both wings.”

There it was… that eyebrow shot right up. I knew she, like most Vulcans was a vegetarian and I like the rest of my people was a carnivore who could eat fruit and veggies but couldn’t really survive on them. Fruit and veggies are prey food…

“I’ll pass but thank you for the offer.” came T’ral’s polite but vaguely disgusted sounding reply. We’d had this conversation before and while I expected her to decline she would have been surprised if I didn’t offer.

“Um… I’m good. Are you a talking cat? How does that work?” came the human’s confused reply.

Honestly it almost never gets old. Humans are so cute when they are confused. Though in this case T’ral beat me to the punch.

“She is a Leth’aan. They closely resemble Terran house cats but have several clear biological differences. Most notably their intelligence. Mell’ana here will be pleased to know that she again out performed me in the last advanced warp theory test.” she said dryly, though I suspected she was enjoying the human’s confusion as much as I was.

I was also quite pleased with how she pronounced my name with the Mell and the ana parts being distinctly separate. Humans tended to run the two parts together and I was constantly trying to not be annoyed at that. Mell was my name, ana was my pride’s name. In this case it was a non name as my pride had rejected me for being a runt. The ana suffix roughly translating to “nothing” or “no one”. I hoped one day to replace it with another name but I didn’t hold out much hope for that honestly.

I thankfully avoided any joints popping as I shifted to stand on my hind legs and reached up to shake hands with the human. A strange custom to be sure but it indicated an impressive level of trust as it put one of your hands in direct danger of the claws of whomever you were shaking hands with.

The look on the human’s face as I stood to my full height of ten or so inches by their measurements. My hind paws were nearly identical to a Terran cat’s paws but my forpaws looked like they had thumbs. When walking on all fours they could easily enough pass as a regular cat’s paws but with more digits then normal. A condition I understood was not uncommon among Terran cats anyway. However when I stood up properly and had my fingers fully flexed out, I did have prehensile fingers and opposable thumbs.

She gently shook my hand and I took a bit of pride in having conquered my fear (mostly) of the giants I had taken to living with.

“I’m Anna.” she said by way of introduction. “You really got a better score then T’ral? I knew she was second in her class but I never would have thought that she was being beaten by...” she finished awkwardly.

She had an unfortunate name really… I managed to avoid wincing with sympathy at it because the name didn’t carry the same baggage as it did in my culture.

“By a cat?” I finished with a touch of humor. “I get that a lot. Even some of the instructors do double takes still honestly.”

“Her tutelage has brought my grades up by 1.2%. It has been an intriguing and gratifying relationship.” The Vulcan announced dryly.

I was honestly surprised she would admit that to anyone. She always seemed annoyed enough that I was able to help her to start with. What she did next though did surprise me and let me know just how much she apparently thought of me as a friend.

“If you need help taking your kill to cafeteria I could carry you. We were just headed for lunch our selves.” she said.

It was all I could do to not start purring honestly. I had thought that I would have to eat my kill in the bushes. While that would be perfectly acceptable as I had been doing that for my kills for some time now, it was good to be included more as an equal. That and the reactions I would get from the other students when I was cleaning and eating a fresh kill at a table could be amusing today where as other times I would find the disgusted reactions to be disturbing or offensive. Almost as offensive as watching them eat replicated, fake cooked meat substitute.

I shifted to all fours, grabbed my kill in mouth and hopped up to her shoulder. I gave her a quick nuzzle and she reached up absently to scratch behind my ears in that way that only these giant races can seem to manage… damn but that felt good.

Meanwhile Anna had a mix of confused and conflicting reactions run across her face that I was still finding very amusing.

While en-route to the cafeteria my participation in the conversation was very limited as my mouth was full of prey… prey that I was worried would be colder than I wanted to eat by the time we got to where I could eat it. I could have sworn, if I didn’t know better, that T’ral was bragging about me being first in our class and darn near first in the whole school at the moment. It’s not like she wasn’t near neck and neck with me, or that there was still enough time left in the semester that she could take the academic lead still…

She let me down at a table and I waited patently for her to bring back a plate for me to put my kill on.

“Hey do we have to have that cat in here. Let it eat that bird outside! You aren’t suppose to have pets here!” came a less than friendly call. Honestly it was something that was hard to get use to but wasn’t any worse over all then being called out as a runt everywhere I went when I was at home.

“Just because she’s probably smarter than your whole table combined doesn’t mean you have to be jealous.” came Anna’s defense of me. I was touched to be honest. Here she was having just met me and she was willing to defend me like a pride member. The collective response from the rest of the table that the juvenile minded human was sitting at was all the gratification I needed for the moment. He wasn’t going to live that jab down any time soon it would seem.

He responded by puffing up even more and started to walk over. Right as T’ral came back with a plate of veggies and fruits in a colorful arrangement that made even me want to take a nibble. “You do realize that openly prejudiced remarks are a violation of the code of conduct. You would do well to return to your seat and not approach any further. This cafeteria is covered by video surveillance and besides that, I’ve seen both of your performances at self defense. Mell’ana here could likely take you in a fight.”

I nearly choked at that response and I hadn’t even started to eat yet. There was no way I could take down a full sized human with out doing the sort of damage that would get me arrested and I seriously doubted my ability to land a claw on any of the vulnerable spots on him before he landed a well placed kick on my ribs anyway.

I did however manage to put my kill down on the plate T’ral had thoughtfully brought back for me and I looked the human in the eyes directly while slitting the birds throat with a claw before beginning to lap up it’s still warm blood as I started to dismember the rest of the bird for proper eating.

I heard an “Oh god...” come from Anna as T’ral simply looked away. The human paled a bit and stopped as T’ral continued

“I understand that the first thing a cat will eat of it’s owner is the eyes.” came her grim follow up.

The offending human turned around and left the cafeteria and the rest of his table moved rather quickly as far away as they could get.

Anna nearly dissolved in a fit of giggles and I was both giggling and purring at the response we got as well. T’ral sounded far, far more smug than usual when she said to Anna “You may want to get some food. You will need the energy to think clearly later for your test.”

A short time later Anna came back with a plate of what looked like bird wings.

“What is that?” I asked while sniffing in that direction. “They smell… spicy.”

“Buffalo wings. Not quite as good as my mother makes but passable anyway.” came Anna’s reply as she started to eat.

“Where are these buffalo found? With the amount of meat on the wings there they have got to make a good meal over all and I would love to try to take one down.” I asked, wondering if the raw meat was as spicy as their cooked counterparts smelled.

Anna’s response was to grin broadly and I could swear that even T’ral almost cracked a smile. “Um… about that. These are just chicken wings and they are called buffalo wings because of the sauce.” she said.

“So, the buffalo makes the spicy sauce the wings are coated in then? Do you have to slaughter them to make the sauce or do they produce it naturally?” I asked, becoming a bit confused.

“Buffalo aren’t used at all in the sauce. It’s just called that. Honestly I don’t know why.” Anna chuckled at me.

“So… you eat chicken wings covered in buffalo sauce that doesn’t come from buffalo at all and call the chicken wings, buffalo wings? You humans are strange some times.” I concluded as I continued to eat my bird.

“I would agree.” came T’ral’s slightly amused sounding response.

Anna just shrugged and kept eating.

“So, T’ral. Why the offer to eat with you today. I know you normally prefer to eat alone.” I asked, hoping I wasn’t prying to deeply.

“I received notice earlier this week that a childhood associate of mine has passed away due to an incurable genetic illness. The news has forced me to re-evaluate my associations here and I have concluded that I could stand to form more mutually beneficial relationships with people of common interests.” She said, back to her neutral dry near impossible to read tones.

“Ah. I think you’re a friend too. It’s good to have friends.” I said to her, trying not to purr again.

That reminded me I would likely have a communication from Lisa Mayweather to view when I got back to my bunk later. She was the first human I ever met and was proving to be a good friend even if we hadn’t seen each other in person since that several week trip to Earth.

I hadn’t met anyone who I’d grown close enough to consider myself a permanent pridemate to but I had met plenty of individuals among these giants who were perfectly willing to be far more friendly then many of my own people had thought.

We were a new species to the Federation and just barely working up the courage to expand past our solar system though we’d had warp travel for a few centuries at this point. Here I was, a prideless runt with out a family, standing among these giants as one of the best performers in the current crop of Star Fleet Academy students and making friends with the same giants that sent our fiercest warriors running to hide. All in all I wasn’t doing to bad for myself.

 

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